PANEL OKS STIM
Vote set COV-relief 'wish list'
The House Budget Committee on Monday voted along party lines to approve President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill — which Republicans in Congress are calling a “liberal wish-list agenda” — sending it to the House floor for a vote later this week.
The 591-page bill, expected to be passed by the Democratic majority and sent on to the Senate, provides $1,400 stimulus checks for most adults, extends through August a $400 per week federal unemployment insurance supplement and raises the hourly US minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 over four years.
Still, a disagreement on the minimum wage could force a rewrite of the bill in the evenly divided Senate, where two Democrats — Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — oppose the wage increase.
House conservatives are also wary of adding to the $27.9 trillion US national debt on the heels of a December $2.3 trillion government funding measure and a COVID-19 relief bill that issued $600 stimulus checks and created a $300 weekly unemployment supplement that runs through March.
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said of the bill, “It’s clear Democrats have no interest in approaching COVID relief in a timely and targeted fashion and are instead using the reconciliation process to jam through their liberal wish-list agenda.”
In response, a conservative caucus in the House targeted the “liberal goodies” in the package as part of a playbook for Republicans to follow and rally against the bill. The threepage memo, penned by the Republican Study Committee, was distributed to lawmakers on Monday and
urges the opponents to highlight “all the left-wing items Democrats are hoping the public won’t find about.”
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), chairman of the RSC, said taxpayers need to be informed about what’s contained in the stimulus bill.
“The RSC is leading conservatives inside and outside the Beltway in opposition to this so-called ‘relief package.’ The more we learn about it, the worse it sounds,” Banks told Fox News.
“That’s why we’ve put together a fact sheet to educate Americans exactly how their taxpayer dollars are being spent by Democrats,” he said.
The memo claims that $1,400 stimulus checks will go to mixedstatus families with undocumented immigrants, although the plan requires individuals to have a valid Social Security number for payment.
Eligible couples in which only one spouse has a Social Security number would still get a check, but for only half of the $2,800 designated for couples earning less than $150,000.
The RSC memo also said an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would result in 1.4 million jobs lost — the same loss number estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.
On the matter of reopening classrooms, the analysis said the relief plan will provide $130 billion for K-12 schools, which will receive the funds even if they remain closed.
It’s unclear if schools that fail to reopen as part of Biden’s goal to reopen them in the first 100 days of his administration would still be eligible for the funds.
The RSC memo also targeted the Biden plan’s expanded weekly unemployment benefits that are due to expire on March 14.
Republicans said that under the legislation, “53 percent of Americans would effectively receive a raise for being unemployed.”